Author: Jay Leonard Schwartz

Artful Dodgers In The Blogosphere Mist

Jay Leonard Schwartz Dialogues, Writing , , , ,

Spare us your wisdom
and send us your cash.
A twenty or a fifty …
… or something like that.
– Send Us Your Money (Judd Jugmonger)

Bloggers make for interesting sorts. Many start out as artists with their ‘craft’ in mind, and end up as marketers with ‘sales’ on their minds. The transmogrification of this species usually follows this pattern: I think therefore I am. I am therefore I create. I’m hungry. In fact, I’m starving. So, I create therefore I sell.

Today I read a post on another blog about writing. Well, actually it was about marketing under the guise of writing because no one with any flair for ‘the creative’ really wants to be a salesman. It’s true, isn’t it? If so, why do there seem to be so many blogging ‘artful dodgers’ in the blogosphere?

Continue reading →

Nervously Unnerved By Noxious Nothings

Jay Leonard Schwartz Intrasomatic Conspiracy, Uncategorized , , , , , ,

Hanging down from my window
Those are my wind chimes
On the warm breeze the little bells
Tinkle like wind chimes
Though it’s hard I try not to look at my wind chimes
Now and then a tear rolls off my cheek
Close your eyes and lean back now listen to wind chimes
In the late afternoon you’re hung up on wind chimes
Though it’s hard I try not to look at my wind chimes
– Wind Chimes (Brian Wilson / Van Dyke Parks)

When was the last time you stepped outside of your head? If you have never done so, I highly recommend it. It can save your sanity. Trust me.

Recently, I’ve had a lot on my mind and just simply ‘too much on my plate’. So much so in fact, that at one point I felt my head teeter to one side, listing and threatening to capsize all rational thought. I did not take this as a good sign. Distracted by the obscenity of this circumstance, I began to obsess compulsively, despite my being repulsed at my impulse to do so. It was then when an errant thought arose, plopping into my mind; it was certainly more of a ‘plop’ and less of a ‘pop’.

At that moment, I found myself standing just off to the side of my mind’s mental highway, staring in bewilderment at a seemingly endless parade of thoughts. They lewdly sashayed their way down the neural pathway, hustling each other along like an errant festoon of Dionysian Mardi Gras party-goers. Now I can ‘surrey and picnic’ with the best of them, but this scene of fervent irreverence was quite surreal. I must confess, I had expected more of my thought processes.

Continue reading →

The SMiLE Of A Dumb Angel

Jay Leonard Schwartz Uncategorized , , ,

Surf’s Up
Aboard a tidal wave
Come about hard and join
The young and often spring you gave
I heard the word
Wonderful thing
A children’s song
– Brian Wilson / Van Dyke Parks

You have to SMiLE at the thought that 43 years after the Beach Boys’ album SMiLE was supposed to be released, an official version in more than one form finally came to be … on Halloween, and in the UK no less. In the United States, the release came 1 day later, on November 1st, the end of the hurricane season in the ‘Atlantic basin’.

Just yesterday I ordered the 2 CD version from the Beach Boys site. I paid extra for the version with a SMiLE T-Shirt. I don’t want to just ‘look, listen, vibrate’ and SMiLE’ I want to wear it, too!

Personal Music: Some Notes & Chords:

There was a time in my life when I would sit at a piano all day and play various chord combinations, without really knowing what chords I was actually playing. Later, I did the same on guitar. I wasn’t looking for a particular mathematical permutation of notes, but rather I was looking for a feeling, a sensation, perhaps even a ‘movement’. In musical terms, this would refer to a “self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form”. For example, on a guitar, pluck the chord Asus2 and let it resonate. To me, such forms don’t necessary come in a string of notes played across a few bars…. but rather in a single blast … a Big Bang, if you will. Listen to the seminal chord progression struck by the Beach Boys vocals in the album’s opening track, Prayer, and you’ll understand.

Continue reading →

The Wooly Hallows: A Freudian Halloween

Jay Leonard Schwartz Dialogues , , , , , , ,
Razor in the Apple - Jay L. Schwartz

‘Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.
– William Shakespeare

No holiday conjures up as much existential angst and parental-control conflict in kids as Halloween does. Really. It’s no wonder many kids have issues with authority and role confusion.

In the days running up to the holiday, most kids dream of toting home the sugar-encrusted spoils from a night of “trick or treating”. On the morning before the hallowed eve, some kids are also trying to figure out how they can smuggle into their bedrooms the stuff they know their parents will most likely confiscate.

Then there are the safety talks …

  • “DON’T eat anything until I can check it!”
  • “DON’T cross the street!”
  • “DONT go into anyone’s house. STAY on the porch!”
  • “DON’T talk to strangers!”
  • “HOLD your baby brother’s hand!”

… and the requisite stern lectures about kooks putting razors in apples and rat poison in popcorn balls.

Continue reading →

Minding Your Writer’s Mind

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations, Writing , , ,

A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.
– Ernest Hemingway

It would be nice to be able to sit down and write a sentence, then the next, perhaps even a third, and then to follow suit in a linear fashion eventually culminating with the completion of a cohesive and coherent text. Is it really asking too much for my mind to play nice? My often mind flits and flutters like the proverbial wing flapping butterfly in Chaos Theory. With all this wrestling with my thoughts, it’s difficult for me to bear in mind that I’m writing for others. So that basically means, my readers often have to hold on for dear life as they read my words, both those on and between the lines. Somewhere of course there is a message. I know what it is, but it’s the readers’ task to find it. And, like with any trip, getting there is half the fun.

Writing for me needs to be fun. It must have a shade of the abstract and a touch of randomness because that’s just the way my mind works. Can I write in 50 or words or less? No. Can I be less of myself? Definitely not. Why? Because that’s just how my mind works. So why should I fight it. If my writing defies convention so be it; my mind certainly does … and most likely do a fair number of yours.

Yet, for many writers and bloggers, writing is a chore. Ideas don’t come easily and finding their ‘voice’ is like looking for a needle in the verbal haystack. If you fancy yourself a writer or blogger, you most likely desire to establish your identity through your words, and to distinguish yourself from your peers, whomever they may be … especially those monkeys which are banging away in earnest to bang out the entire works of Shakespeare on a typewriter as a matter of happenstance.

Continue reading →

Interlude Of Ineptitude: Goodbye Blogspot, Hello WordPress

Jay Leonard Schwartz Uncategorized , ,

I know you’re out there. I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid… you’re afraid of us. You’re afraid of change. I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin. I’m going to hang up this phone, and then I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.
– Neo (The Matrix)

Just a quick post here, as these comments, an interlude as such, are caught somewhere between ‘been there’ and ‘nice to be here’. As I mentioned elsewhere, I’ve decided to ‘self-host’ this blog and therefore am migrating it to the WordPress blogging platform and away from Google Blogger. It’s something I should’ve done ealier, or perhaps even from the start. However, as with many folks, it was a combination of fear and complacency that prevented me from doing so.

Continue reading →

Relieving Yourself In The Face Of Solemnity

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , , , , ,
Lay down all thought
Surrender to the void
It is shining
It is shining
– John Lennon (Tomorrow Never Knows)

 

 

I used to believe that each day I knew all there ever was to know. The next day, I would learn a few more things and marvel at how stupid I was the day before. That’s the way it is with life. Each day brings new possibilities, new hopes, new dreams and, of course, fresh concerns. Balancing the ‘yings’ and ‘yangs’ of our existence can leave us dumbfounded as we existentially grope around in our subconscious for our minds to hang our ‘sense of being’ and self-worth on.

For many, juggling the psychic apparatus of their various cognitive and psychological states is serious business, and good business for many institutions come circus barkers. It’s really something to meditate on. Nevertheless, I’ve never been much of a meditator.

In fact, I’m much too full of myself for the practice and balk at any idealistic isms that preach self-nullification. Perhaps it’s a defense mechanism, but for many years, I felt as if I was my own best friend. Alone with my thoughts which I could never really share, I’d entertain myself and find ways to make myself smile. I never heard voices in my head, though I would occasionally talk to myself.

Continue reading →

Whose Shoes Are These? (An Introspective Question)

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , , ,

“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
in any direction you choose.
You’re on your own.
And you know what you know.
You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”
– Dr. Seuss

 

Hang on for a second …

An easy question to ask concerns how often you find yourself having to justify yourself to others. A harder question, and one I might suggest may be much more important, is how often you find ‘others’ having to justify themselves to you?

I just want to say …

Do everyday conversations you have with others feel like losing battles ‘you must’ win? Does social banter take on the sensation that it’s taking place with a fast-taking salesman on a used car lot? When speaking with others, are you simultaneously carrying on a conversation with that ‘inner voice’ talking in your head? Indeed, it often feels like there are so many questions and so little time. And, by the time you are ready to make your point, the conversation has already ended.
Continue reading →

Contrarian Pseudo Babble: A Play With No Parts

Jay Leonard Schwartz Dialogues , , , , , , ,

 

PROLOGUE:

[An encounter outside the Katywonkered Cafe’]

ACT I

THE PHILOSOPHER:
Before setting off on a voyage, the pagans gather for a feast. The mind vomits forth … and none are saved.

THE PRACTICAL ONE:
So, where are we off to?

THE CYNIC:
Lord only knows. No where fast from what I can see.

THE PRACTICAL ONE:
Well, that’s a great attitude to have. Don’t you have a plan?

THE CYNIC:
What do you think I sit around plotting my every step?

THE PRACTICAL ONE:
Planning. You mean planning your every step.

THE CYNIC:
Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Who cares! Let’s just get on with it, then.

Continue reading →

Lie To Me! Fabrications, Fables, Fairy Tales And Fibs

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations, Dialogues, Occupy Karma , , , , , , , , ,
“He gives speeches, but they put him back in bed where he wrote his satire.”
– Brian Wilson, (He Gives Speeches)

 

I think it was in kindergarten when I remember being told the story of little George “I cannot tell a lie” Washington and the cherry tree he confessed to his father he had chopped down. Through this vignette, my classmates and I were admonished to always tell the truth. The only problem was that often told tale … is a lie, a fabricated fable of fibbing fiction. It was actually created by biographer, Mason Locke Weems, as an anecdote laudable to Washington’s character and as an “exemplary to his countrymen”. Nevertheless, this fractured fairy tale is almost as hallowed as the national anthem.

When I was 2 years old, the US Congress passed the ‘Gulf of Tonkin Resolution’ granting President Johnson the wanton power to take military action as he saw fit in Southeast Asia, ostensibly to combat the spread of communist aggression. The passage of the resolution, enabling Johnson to launch America full-tilt into the Vietnam war, was predicated on a fabricated set of events suggesting that American naval vessels had come under unprovoked attack by the North Vietnamese.

When I first heard the above tale, I remember being skeptical. I’m not sure why my ‘bullshit detector’ went off that day. Perhaps it was the result of a burgeoning character flaw or a latent psychic ability to perceive the teacher’s own insincerity in her own overly dramatic rendition of the fable. Some might say that my lack of gullibility at that tender age speaks volumes of my character or my perception of ethics. And, indeed early on I began to question my moral constitution. In retrospect, I was ‘loony’ to do so.

Continue reading →